bio - biography

Nederlandse ontwikkelingshulp in Zambia-vanaf 1966

Een persoonlijke samenvatting en commentaar op ontwikkelingshulp

Mijn aankomst in Zambia aan het einde van het jaar 1967 was 3 jaar na de onafhankelijkheid. Het sociale bestel van Zambia zal niet veel anders zijn geweest dan in de laatste koloniale dagen onder de Engelsen. Maar de Zambiaanse regering onder president Kaunda had de koperindustry genationaliseerd en de bevolking was zich wel bewust van de onafhankelijkheid. Het was voor ons, expatriats, die de noodzakelijke technische kennis meebrachten, een paradijs. Wij hadden wel privileges zoals relatief hoge inkomens en behuizing in moderne villas, maar het sociale bestel werd geaccepteerd door de zwarte bevolking, waar we mee in contact kwamen binnen de kaders van ons werk. De veiligheid in de straat was zo goed dat we geen sleutel nodig hadden voor ons huis.

Vier jaar in het land en we hebben nooit iemand ontmoet van de organisaties in de ontwikkelingshulp. Deze organisaties werkten in de armere gebieden van Zambia en niet in de welvarende Copperbelt mijnbouwgebieden. Mijn informatie is gebaseerd op berichten in de recente pers en internet.

Een goed overzicht word gegeven door

African Studies Centre
From idealism to realism
A social history of the Dutch in Zambia
1965 tot 2013
Anne‐Lot Hoek

Technical assistance in the form of young volunteers formed the initial face of Dutch development aid in Zambia. The first team of nine Dutch volunteers of the Youth Volunteer Programme (JVP) arrived in 1966. The organization behind the JVP, SNV (Stichting Nederlandse Vrijwilligers), focused its policy on ‘integrated rural development’, supplying agricultural, health, and educational services to specific areas. Dutch development assistance was clearly aimed at the level of poor subsistence farmers, following its ideal of reducing regional welfare inequalities. By contrast, organizations like the EU and World Bank supported the provinces with greater potential.

Volunteers received a three‐month course of very basic training from the Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam. In general, the focus of the volunteer programme was based on the idea that the recipient country ‘had to be changed’. Local culture, therefore, was seen as a hindrance. In the publicity films, shown to volunteers during their training, it was suggested that local methods of milking, ploughing and preparing food were all ‘wrong’. It was clear from the start, therefore, that Western perspectives on what development entailed prevailed in the aid relationship. In line with this perspective, the Dutch ambassador saw development as the important task of transferring knowledge with the goal of making oneself superfluous:

The Dutch integrated very well with the Zambians. There was no discrimination;  they were morally good people. The Zambians were very happy with their arrival. They were doing things here with chickens and trees and agriculture. A Dutch couple – Max and Tineke – taught people how to produce rice. Before their arrival there was no rice here; the project was very successful. Tineke made uniforms for children in the area, and she taught women how to make them.

According to volunteers, however, most Zambians did not see much difference between them and the former colonizers. Volunteers in numerous cases replaced colonial teachers and nurses, who had lost their jobs at independence, and had the same lifestyles. A former volunteer observed: “For Zambians there wasn’t much difference between us and the former colonials. If you arrive there as a young bloke, drive a Land Rover, and you can buy whatever you want, do whatever you want, and somebody was cooking and cleaning for you, it didn’t matter to the local population who you were. You were just another white one.”  This large gap between two different worlds is also found in the feelings of the volunteers when they look back on their experiences. Many Dutch feel their time as volunteers was, though very exciting and valuable, mainly beneficial to themselves and not so much to the people.

Other sources of information
 

Former ambassador Graaf Van Limburg Stirum, who took office in 1978, underlines that local practice did not lead in Dutch development policy because “the Dutch were determined to pursue their own plans about what they thought was important for Zambians”. We knew better. That was a typically Dutch type of behaviour at that time. Officials from The Hague came yearly to Zambia to dictate the Dutch development policy. The Zambians just accepted it. A good example is the request of the Zambian government for the Dutch to assist them with setting up a transport system together with Dutch transport company DAF. The Dutch refused, because it didn’t fit into their own development priorities.”

Its status as a Least Developed Country was changed to a Lower Middle Income Country by the World Bank in 2012: a landmark in Zambia’s decade of economic growth. According to the same bank, Zambia is today a “fast‐growing economy”. Despite the economic growth, de velopment challenges are still prominent. Approximately 60 per cent of the population continues to live below the poverty line. The United Nations Human Development Index ranked 185 UN member states in 2012 according to their development level; Zambia held position 163, lower than Angola, Madagascar, Uganda, and Lesotho. In fact, Zambia had climbed only three places since 1980.

In de jaren rond 2000  waren er verscheidene projecten die een positieve ontwikkeling hadden.

Mark Terken (1965 - 2018)
kwam in 1991 als stagiair tropische landbouw naar Zambia. nu werkt hij in heel afrika als adviseur voor groene investeerders. 

Na zijn stage begon Mark Terken een bedrijf dat paprika’s exporteert. Hij kreeg subsidie van verschillende ontwikkelingsorganisaties. Ook kon hij daarmee boeren trainen en ze helpen bij het kopen van landbouwchemicaliën. “De Nederlandse initiatieven die in Zambia zijn gebleven, onderscheiden zich doordat ze bedrijvigheid stimuleren”, zegt Terken, die tegenwoordig grote buitenlandse investeerders, fondsen en banken adviseert op het gebied van duurzame landbouwinvesteringen. 

Hij heeft voor de Wereldbank net veertien grote landbouwbedrijven in vier Afrikaanse landen, waaronder Zambia, onderzocht op hun maatschappelijke verantwoordelijkheid. “Afrika en landbouw zijn hot, er is veel geld beschikbaar om te investeren en de ontwikkelingsimpact die daarmee behaald kan worden is, ondanks de uitdagingen, groot.” 
Nederlandse boerenbedrijven in Zambia zijn volgens Terken een voorbeeld van die positieve invloed. “Kijk naar het bedrijf van Willem Lublinkhof. Zijn koffie wordt duurzaam verbouwd, hij zorgt voor duizenden banen en draagt zorg voor zijn werknemers en hun gezin. Dat is een blijvende Nederlandse bijdrage aan de ontwikkeling van Zambia waarop we best trots mogen zijn.”  
 

Volkskrant:
11 feb 2013 — Zambia verliest drie keer zoveel geld door belastingontwijking dan dat het binnenkrijgt via ontwikkelingshulp, is de schatting van ActionAid. Er word verwezen naar een grote suikercompany, werkzaam in Zambia, met brievenbus adres in Nederland.

Mining in Zambia-70s&80s